


Synesthesia

by jenna_thorn



Category: Firefly, The Sandman
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 19:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River and her delerium</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synesthesia

**Come and sit, a bit, with me  
See how lemon wends, in tea.  
\-- Dodie Messer Meeks **

_"I've got her."_

Her throat was sore and her ears were ringing, but her hands were warm, so it wasn't the cold drug. She heard the names; Simon would explain them very carefully to her, but the names he gave them didn't matter, because he didn't feel them. There was the hot drug and the cold drug and the yellow drug, which wasn't yellow in his hands but it was behind her eyes. It was actually pale blue. A sort of pretty blue. It was a much prettier blue in the vial than it was a yellow in her blood.

 _"Carefully, please."_

"I'll be just as careful with her as she was …"

"Jayne. Gentle. Now. Doctor, I believe I said no more outbursts."

The sound of gun oil and the feel of leather faded and there was only Simon, loving Simon, patient Simon, betrayer Simon with her. She watched him quietly as he tapped the keyboard, sending sparks shooting down the corridor, a flurry of white and green. He didn't seem to notice them.

She leaned forward to watch where they went, but her hair fell forward over her shoulders, a waterfall pooling in her cupped hands, flowing down to splash and tangle in a froth of white foam and rocks with a faun frolicking in the pool. She blinked. Very definitely a faun -- goat legs and pipes, now dancing along the back of her hand. She raised her hand to eye level and could see past the faun, now bowing deeply to her, to where Simon rose, glanced over his shoulder at her, and left the bay. He hadn't tied her down this time, which was good, because if she was strapped, she wouldn't be able to nod back in what she hoped was a regal manner as she lowered the faun to safety on the counter beside her. Sometimes the drugs made her shake and she didn't want to hurt anyone. Even when she did.

She said hello, but no sound came out, only a soft sigh and a stream of air with a scent like ice. So she was astonished when a quiet voice beside her echoed her greeting.

Another girl stood there, exactly the same height, except that River was barefoot and the other wore shoes like Jayne's. And a jacket like Mal's, but soft to the touch. And her hair sang with color and noise and her skin was whole and unscarred, but her clothes looked as though she'd been in a firefight. Or been cut with knives. River shuddered and the other lay her head to one side and smiled and suddenly she went from a little scary to quite safe and almost comforting.

Her hair became feathers of yellow and red, but after a heartbeat so did River's, so that was okay.

They walked for a moment in friendly silence, following a dog that wasn't there into a room covered in grass and wildflowers. And the other laughed, a mousey grey laugh, with fur on the underside. "Oh I like this world much better than that one. Straight lines are too hard to follow." She ran her hand over the grass, smoothing it into rippled water, which grew into a pond filled with brightly colored fish. As the fish swam, their colors ran into the water, leaving behind swirls and eddies of rainbows, while the fish grew wings, light filmy wings, soap bubbles of wings, and flew away. And River turned to the picnic basket behind her and pulled out a blanket for them to sit upon.

The other clapped her hands in Delight, and River smiled. "What's your name?"

"I'm not sure," the other answered, as she twisted the corner of the blanket.

"It really doesn't matter, as long as we remember that one of is River and that's me." River pulled the basket to her and started laying out teacups, and a gently steaming pot.

"I should remember that. Umm, unless I don't."

"But if neither of us do, it won't really matter, will it?" And the grin she got in return sang like a chorus of angels. Or perhaps red. "How long have you been here?" Sandwiches, tiny ones, wrapped in translucent paper followed the tea pot, a flurry of sandwiches, cucumber and watercress and banana with peanut butter.

"Not very long. Or forever, sometimes. Mostly not very long, really. I think."

River nodded and drew a cutting board out and a bag of lemons, but she couldn't bring herself to touch the knife. The other girl slid her hand along past her wrist, a cool caress, a whisper of touch, and took it. In her hands, the knife shifted from a huge cleaver to a scalpel to a three inch silver blade with gold filigree along the edge. River set a lemon on the board and sat back, her hands in her lap, trying not to shake.

The knife sliced through, cleanly cutting through the lemon and the fingertips holding it. Still she kept slicing, until a pile of red tinged circles lay neatly stairstepped on one another. While the other put her mangled hand into her mouth, River poured tea into china cups so white they gleamed in the afternoon sun. Her companion lifted slices into the cups, no longer swirled with red, but now starting to sprout, leaves from one end, roots at the other. But the lemon juice still bleached the tea, so that was okay, too.

"Normally my brother does things like that." River offered, trying not to stare at the unscarred fingers.

"Brothers are nice to have." Her brow furrowed. "Except when they aren't."

"I absolutely agree. I have one brother."

"I have two. Well, three, sort of. And one who left. I don't know whether I should still count him. And a dog named Barnabas, but he's not my brother."

River tried the sandwiches. The watercress tasted like smoke, but the cucumber ones were delicious. The peanut butter ones were conscripted to be a chorus line, high stepping across the checks of the picnic blanket, sweating oil and scattering banana slices as they gradually collapsed in exhaustion.

They drank their tea in friendly silence. The chamomile soothed River's throat, just as it had since she was a child. But some sips were mint tea, and she wished she hadn't put so much lemon in. She leaned back to feel the sun on her face and watch winged frogs chase the swirled fish through the sky. "I like it here, too."

"It's not much like my home." She piled the limp white peanut butter sandwiches into a pile, mooshing them together into a tan and brown lump, pulling ears from it, patting the final rabbit on the head.

"Nor mine." River answered, as the rabbit hopped away, pulling out a pocket watch on a fob very much like one that Simon's tutor had, so long ago.

"Would you like to come home with me? I don't live there all the time, but I like it there. Mostly. Sometime's it's quiet, so I leave. And, um, sometimes it's noisy, and I go away. But mostly I like it. Except when I don't."

River thought. She thought of forever leaving the pursuit she knew was on them, of living in a world with peanut butter rabbits and winged frogs and colors that became rainbows and rainbows that became song. She thought of Jayne and his fear, of Simon and his singing, seething resentment, of Book's secrets and of Inara's distance, of Wash's dinosaurs tromping along the bay, of Zoe's cool certainty. She thought of Kaylee and the apple. She stroked the bulkhead behind her, feeling Serenity purr at her touch.

 _"Gorram, Captain, she's in the hallway."_

"Well, step over her Jayne, it's not like you can't stretch those legs."

"I'm not giving her an easy shot…"

The smell of brown that was the captain came closer and River smiled upward. "I'm having tea." And she took one last sip as the cup in her hands dissolved into the scent of strawberries.


End file.
